It’s been about three weeks since the last episode, largely because the beer news world has been pretty slow lately. We came back strong, though, with a long conversation about quality control at breweries and what a brewer’s responsibility to their customers is when bad beer is released.

7:50 to 30:37 Quality Control in Breweries. At a bottle share in San Diego, Ryan had a bottle of an Upland Brewery sour that gushed nearly a foot in the air and left him with only half a bottle left. This got him to thinking about breweries and their quality control, and what they might owe the consumers that get obviously flawed beer. Should a consumer get compensation for a bad bottle? I talk about issues I’ve had with Jolly Pumpkin beers, as well as Keweenaw brewing. Also mentioned: Deschutes, the Lost Abbey, Dark Horse, and more. Lots of breweries have occasional or continuing issues with quality control; what is the proper response to these issues? We’d love to hear your thoughts and if we get enough responses we’ll do a bunch of emails in a future episode, so please listen and respond at beyondthepour@gmail.com.

30:37 to 35:15 Taking a bit of a tangent off of that, as beer reviewers we tend to try to make sure we’re getting the freshest and best beer possible for review on the show, but that’s not always a fair representation for what’s on the shelf and available in the market. Do we bend over backwards a bit too much to make sure we’re “fair” to the products we review?

35:15 to 55:53 What we’ve been drinking lately and our wrap-up. Ryan had an out-of-town guest in his house last week, none other than fellow Beertuber Master of Hoppets, so we talk a bit about that. I also talk about being back in school and the way that that has effected my beer drinking. We talk a lot about how great the people in the craft beer community are, and end another episode imploring people to engage in bottle shares.

Sorry for the relatively rough form of this podcast, but I had to leave town only a day after recording this and didn’t have the time to get it quite as polished as I’d have liked to. I figure getting these out on a regular schedule but with a bit of “roughness” is better than making you guys wait a week and a half to get the content.

Anyway, the conversation in this episode is a bit less formal than in the last two. I think Ryan and I are really getting to the point of comfort with the podcast, and I’m excited to keep sharing it with him and with our listeners.

John Conlin’s rant over at the Aleheads website about the three-tier system and “Prettiest Girl at the Dance” craft breweries. Warts and all, this is probably the best defense of the three-tier system I’ve seen, and it’s worth a look. (Also check out the Aleheads podcast sometime — it’s excellent.)

Somebody (likely from LA) put a growler of Alpine’s Exponential Hoppiness on Ebay, and the brewery announced that they would no longer package the product. Fair response? What is it about the gray market for beers on Ebay anyway? Has trading gotten a little insane?